Bevd

Darcy is finally home She's laying on a settee (having totally ignored the big, squishy, nice clean bed I prepared for her) and is looking....erm...glum But at least she's home She ate half a tin of food at the vets today, all by herself so I'm going to see if she will eat some chicken breast fillets shortly. I am not holding my breath She has to go back to see the vet on Wednesday.

Oh and I forgot to say (ages ago :rolleyes) that Darcy is in this months Burpdog POM contest if anyone wishes to vote for her fuzzy features http://www.burpdog-biscuits.com/Pet_Of_The...Pick_Jan08.html

She's still a bit squitty apparently but we're going in later this afternoon....

I've just done a search and found my Buddy thread from 2004 http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php?showto...72&hl=Buddy

I am certainly no expert in any way but a few years ago, Buddy (lurcher) had very low albumin levels and she was diagnosed with protein losing entrop....entropi...something. It was something to do with the gut (every other test had come back normal so it was a process of elimination which ended up pointing to the gut). But, a biopsy was NOT done because (bearing in mind this is a few years ago) there was talk of the condition meaning that the gut sometimes doesn't heal well at all and therefore a biopsy could do more harm than good. I'm sure there are others here who will be able to give you more (and proper) info but I just wanted to mention something when I saw you mention a possibly biopsy.

We're back from todays visit, but Darcy is still at the vets. She is picking up though and her diorrhea dihorheah dire-rear is becoming less so She's still not eating. We had a good chat with the vet and have decided that this will be the last chemo. We'll not go ahead with an 'extra' dose (or two), just in case it provokes some wierd reaction because we certainly don't want her to go through this again. If we were part way through a course then maybe we'd take the risk (obviously not with this particular drug again, but with another) but as we are at the end of a traditional course of treatment, we'll take our chances and run. I asked him (the vet) how long he thinks it will take Darcy from now, to recouperate fully from this and he said about 10 days. But all being well, she should be able to come home tomorrow (insert tentative grin). Her heart rate was about 200 bpm when she was admitted () and is now down to about 70-80 which is normal for her. He's going to check her white blood count in the morning and check that it's still OK. So, eyes, ears, legs and fingers crossed that by this time tomorrow, Darcy should be home...

Sorry - Thursday is my day for doing a Red Cross shift so I've only just got home. Nothing of great significance to report - she's still got a bit of the big D but she's not been sick. She's still not eating by herself (although she's on a drip and she's being given some sloppy food by syringe). We're hoping to go in to see her today about 6.30pm but thats a little up in the air because we are having car issues and DH is waiting for the breakdown peeps at the local post office (where he broke down)

We've been in to see Darcy and she's definately better than she was yesterday. She wagged her tail when we arrived so that's an improvement, although she did go back to being sulky once the initial excitement of our arrival had worn off She still won't eat though. We tried her with some of her normal food (which she usually likes a lot) but she just made a face and looked the other way. The nurses tried her with some liver treats and she sniffed them but wouldn't eat one. They've left some of our food in her kennel in the hope that once we'd all stopped gawping at her, she may decide to eat it. I've arranged to phone tonights nurse (who I like a lot) tonight at half nine because she'll have checked on Darcy both at 8pm and 9pm so hopefully, she may have something good to report at that point. I'm impressed with how clean they've managed to keep Darcy, given the issues they've had to deal with

Apparently, Darcy is brighter this morning (yayy). She had the squits late last night.....and the Pooch Pants had unfortunately come off (That was nice for the nurse, who was on her own to deal with it). But this morning, there was virtually nothing, poo wise (sorry for the details). She's not been sick either, so thats good. She's also somewhat more active and she's not had to have the painkiller/sedative today. She's had a small amount of prescription diet mixed with water, by syringe but she was getting fed up with the nurse sticking the syringe in her gob so they're going to give her some more a little later. When we go in this afternoon, we're taking in some of her Wainwrights food (fishy flavour) to see if she'll eat any of that. So the plan is for us to go in later this afternoon and by then, it will have been decided whether she's staying for another night or whether we can bring her home.

I don't think she's having anything for that to be honest, although there was a list of about 5 or 6 things on the board so she might be. I'll have to ask tomorrow. Still can't get through to the nurse but I think that either the phone is not ringing in her room or she's with the vet, dealing with an emergency. They don't normally give a number for the nurse - it's just because we are virtually family LOL. I'm not unduly worried because if something was wrong, they would have called us.

Just phoned and there's no reply (the number I'm ringing is not the vet himself - it's the number for the nurse) so I assume she's still tied up with Darcy or another patient. I'll try again shortly...

We're back from visiting Darcy and she was still feeling poorly. She's not been sick today (so far) but she's still having problems at the other end so she's wearing....Pooch Pants Basically, it's a nappy created for dogs Basically, the 'pants' catch the stuff and it means that Darcy doesn't get covered in it. The nurses then only have to bath her rear end rather than bathe the whole of her and the whole of the kennel (including the walls) as was the case this morning. She's now having two anti sickness drugs plus various other things including a pain killer which has a sedative effect so that she's not anxious about being at the vets and also, to stop her fretting about making a mess. She hates messing in her bed as some of you may remember from when she first had her surgery. She wasn't really interested in the food which was being offered today but they are going to try something else later. She's still on a drip but has changed from rehydration stuff to maintenance stuff. To bne honest, she was very dopey (you know when they start to fall asleep with their nose pointing downwards, onto the bedding) so I doubt she's going to do much in the way of eating, even if she felt like a bit of something. Tomorrow we're going to take in some of the food she normally likes at home and see if she'll have a bit of that. I've arranged to phone the nurse on duty at 8.30pm tonight so I'll update you with any news then.

Morning. I've just spoken to the vet and the upshot is that Darcy is no worse and if anything, slightly better. She's had lots of fluids overnight but had quite severe diarrhoea. She's not had any sickness (although she's not had any food or medication by mouth so...). Her heart rate was fast and a bit irregular yesterday (although I didn't know this ) but today, it's settling down. Her blood tests were OK - liver is fine, kidneys were a little off yesterday because of her fluid loss but he said they will be OK now (no damage or anything). She's had painkillers so he said she's a bit subdued from those. I asked if he thinks this is 'just' a reaction to the Doxorubicin and he said yes, he does. He thinks she has had what he called an 'over reaction'. If Darcy had been having her chemo treatment at the cancer centre, she'd have finished her treatment after this 4th dose. But, because she had been doing so well, the idea was to give her an extra dose or two of Carboplatin. I asked the vet this morning, whether Darcy would now still have another dose (or two) of this other drug and he said that the Carboplatin is less likely to give her such 'systemic symptoms' if she did react to it but I think we all agree that giving another dose is now highly debatable. We'll have to discuss it more but I just know that we do not want her to go through this again. The plan for today is that they are going to syringe some food into her this morning and see how she does with that and we're going in to visit her this afternoon. She'll definately stay with them for another day though.

I think it's from the chemo but the anti sickness drugs seemed to hinder rather than help because they didn't stop her being sick and they made her drool a lot.

We're back from the vets but Darcy has stayed to go on a drip He may also run some lab tests but I'm not sure what. I've got to phone in the morning.

Monday morning update. Darcy is still feeling very poorly with the added side effect of big D (x 2 so far).

We're back. This dose of Doxorubacin has made her quite poorly (obviously). The risk with this drug is that it can damage the heart but usually, the dog is pretty safe until a certain amount has been given. Without going into techinal figures (I can remember that the safe dose is 300 somethings), Darcy has only actually had 100 somethings so really, there shouldn't be a problem but it does look as if there has been some damage to her heart. It's not massive damage but it is irreversable. The vet said that every 30 heart beats or so, there was a bit of an irregularity (which wasn't the case before). Anyway, that's that and there's nothing we can do about it so there's no point worrying about it. I just hope that as it's done some damage to her good bits, it's also done well at blasting the crappy bits. He checked her pulse which was good and noted that her gums are a much deeper red than normal (this is another effect of the drug). He said there was a slight crackle in her lungs but nothing much but he gave her a duiretic medication to get rid of any build up of fluid. He also gave her a shot of antibiotic (as we'd not been able to get her to take tablets and anyway, she'd have lost them by now) and he also gave her something which I said looked like tile grout It's some paste stuff which lines the gut. We got some of that to bring home and she has to have it twice a day (she'll be delighted). I've also got a giant syringe (60ml) and a big box of powdered glucose. He wants to see her again tomorrow so she has an appointment for 4.40pm. She's now laying on the couch and just before I started typing, she barfed again. Poor Darcy :err:

Decided to call the vet at half 8 because I'm not happy with Darcy. She sounds very chesty and I don't know why. She's also been sick again and is obviously feeling very poorly so we are off to the vets now (I'm just waiting for Marc to get changed).

Well she's had one dose so far of the antacid stuff but it doesn't seem to have helped yet. She's refusing all food (and I've tried various combinations of various things) and she's still drooling an awful lot. I'm going to have to speak to the vet again in the morning I think.

She's dribbling a LOT but I've just read the leaflet in the Serenia packet (thats the anti sickness drug) and it does mention salivation as a possible side effect She's also just been sick (tiny bit) and has had a drink of water so we'll see if that remains where it should.

I've spoken to the vet and Marc is now on his way up there (minus Darcy) to collect some antacid medication and some more of the anti sickness medication (not that she's actually been sick but she definately feels that way I think). The vet said that it's very early days to be 'overly' worried about anything and that this is the time (3 days+) after her chemo when she is most likely to be feeling poorly. Nobody knows why she's reacted this way this time around but I suppose thats just one of the many questions people have about this sort of treatment. The vet also said that even though her temperature is OK, we should start her on some antibiotics (I have them 'in stock for her') just in case. Woe is Darcy

It seems that we're having a glitch. Darcy hasn't been that good since her chemo on Thursday (apart from Friday night when she had another of her mad play sessions). But other than that, she's been very quiet and has hardly moved and she's not eaten a full meal since the day before her chemo. Some meals have been refused totally and some have been attempted after some persuasion but then she's only eaten a quarter or a half. This morning, she's very lethargic and at one point, was sitting up in the corner of the room with her face, facing the corner... Her temperature is OK (a little low if anything at 37.7) but I'm going to phone the vet at 11.30 when they open for a short sunday surgery, just to see if she needs looking at or if there is anything we should be doing. It's all new and scary because this is the first time she's been unwell since she started this whole journey and I'm not sure why she's reacted so differently to this chemo drug when she had no big problems with it when it was given first time (chemo number 2).

Thinking good thoughts for Heath I think (and you may have already planned this) that you need to chat with the vet again about changing the pain medication or getting another medication added in.

Thinking good thoughts